The touch screen controls didn't annoy me much, but the fucking mic bits on those games did. Having to shout into the mic to pass certain bits on Phantom Hourglass were the worst part of the game, especially if your playing in public, but fortunately you could bypass them by blowing into the mic. Talking of blowing into the mic, the flute in Spirit Tracks... I loved the idea, and it sounded awesome and I liked it. Except my mic on my DS didn't work well, so it took me about 10 minutes to trying to play some of the final songs because it just would stop registering my blows halfway through a tune. Fortunately I never had similar problems with the item that required you to blow into the mic.

The touch screen controls were actually utilised quite well I thought, far better then most games on the DS. Few ever seemed to actually use them significantly, but Phantom Hourglass had some nice ideas. The only irritating parts where when a puzzle or optional goodie required note taking or precision drawing. Mostly because I'm a messy writer at the best of times, and drawing a straight line or writing a concise note on the DS touch screen was awkward at the best of times. Apart from those few cases, they were used brilliantly I thought. Stylus control of the boomering was far less annoying then I had originally expected, and same with some of the drawing puzzles (which fortunately realised that precision was awkward and were incredibly forgiving of vaguely wonky lines or imprecise stylus handling). The combat was suprisingly good and the games actually had an ability to be genuinely challenging at times. The final stage of the final boss in Phantom Hourglass could easily take the cake of the hardest boss in any Zelda game ever, if he took one or two more hearts off per strike. Even so, I beat him with fairly low health and both potions used up. Shame you could cheat your way past the final fight if you abused the mechanics, because there were some really, really awesome ideas there.

"English doesn't so much borrow words from other languages as follows them into a dark alley, hits them over the head and goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary."

I was wondering also, why don't they just release a full HD Zelda pack? TP in HD would look insanely good.

While that would be nice, it would take a decent amount of resources to do so, and it would take away from other game titles and other future Zelda games, causing them to be pushed back. However, if this trend continues, I could see Nintendo releasing TP in HD somewhere down the line.

1. Skyward sword, was my favorite of all time. was a bit to linear and the skyworld had more potiential but everything else was amazing

2. wind waker, tied story wise with skyward sword, had the best portrayal of ganondorf, had some of the funniest dialog and unique characters. my only complaint was that the ocean was to empty when traveling and some of the islands should have been more important with more things on them.

3. A link to the past, was an amazing game for its time, there was pretty much nothing wrong with it. would place it higher if i didnt like 3d gameplay more than 2d. i really wish they had remade this instead like they said they were going to. a link to the past in 3d wouldve been amazing.

4. twilight princess. there were TONS of things wrong with this game but i liked the characters and vibe so much that i decided to put this up here. if this were purely gameplay it wouldnt even be on here.

5. majoras mask/ocarina of time. i like to consider these two parts of the same game since originally majoras mask was just going to be an addon for ocarina of time but the accessory that would be required to run it flopped so they made it its own game. one of the best games of all time. ocarina of time had the gameplay and majoras mask had the story and characters.

"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon

From a pure gameplay perspective, I'd certainly put Twilight Princess first, for all it's faults. The combat in particular was the best it has ever been in a Zelda, and the only problem would be that we don't get quite enough chance to explore it. In fact, while everyone gives Twilight Princess a lot of shit, and it certainly deserves at least some of it, I am actually of the opinion that it one of the stronger Zeldas. Far more thematically unified then any of the other 3D Zeldas ever (although note, I havn't played Skyward Sword so can't compare it to that), as well as being bigger, without feeling too padded (padded it certainly was, but the padding was far more interesting then that of Wind Waker, and it never detracted too much from the game for me). It had a number of interesting ideas backed up by it's solid gameplay and only occasionally let down by some repetition or blandness. The opening sequence is perhaps one of the worst in any Zelda, but everything past that was surprisingly solid, and it certainly had better dungeons then most of the other games. I think however I got a beter experience from it because I played it on the gamecube, as it was intended, rather then on the Wii (which I never had). From what I understand the game mechanics and design, unlike Skyward Sword, were not at all comfortable with being shoved into a room with motion controls.

Still had fucking awkward swimming mechanics though.

"English doesn't so much borrow words from other languages as follows them into a dark alley, hits them over the head and goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary."

The one they talked about on the Direct is for Wii U, but there's a separate team that's working on a 3DS game. I don't think it's been confirmed to be in development yet, but I assume they've started work on it by now.

Actually it's about time they announced the new handheld Zelda. Maybe they'll do it on the next 3DS Direct, or save it for E3.

The 3DS installment of the Zelda series is in the wood work. Grezzo is probably going to be working on Majora's Mask and they will also be involved in the next 3DS Zelda game too, that said I believe Nintendo's timeline for a Zelda game portable wise is a new game before Majora's Mask, so expect that by E3 there will be an announcement for the game.

I'd really like to see a Zelda title for the Wii U, I doubt they make two games at this point depending on how long it takes to make the game, and we could be looking at another year or two before we see any hints at a release. If Nintendo is building off the tech demo idea from E3 2011, then at least they have a small framework to use and they have an idea as to what kind of art will be used in the game.

I hope we see a new Metroid game though, hopefully not one as tedious as the Prime games, but I still like that gameplay style and open world feel, just less back tracking would be nice. A more forward approach to designing the levels would be far more enjoyable but having the ability to backtrack for side puzzles that require ability upgrades in order access them so you can obtain upgrades like energy tanks and missile upgrades would be perfect. Basically, if they can make a 3D version of the 2D games which don't have so much bloody backtracking, it would be way more fun.

Congrats to the 8 fools who made the ignore list, your ignorance knows no bounds, bravo!

Biggest thing I care about from Nintendo, even more then Zelda, is after they are done with their whole restructuring program they are working on right now that there was mention from Shigesato Itoi of a possible Mother/EarthBound compilation. I don't know what that means by his worlds, possibly individual graphical updates of all three games (or at least the first 2) or finally a complete trilogy collection on one system, either way I am really excited to hear more about it as long as they don't come out as just downloads.

Also I would love to see Project Sora do an update to the StarTropics series after they are done with Smash Bros. 4.

Biggest thing I care about from Nintendo, even more then Zelda, is after they are done with their whole restructuring program they are working on right now that there was mention from Shigesato Itoi of a possible Mother/EarthBound compilation. I don't know what that means by his worlds, possibly individual graphical updates of all three games (or at least the first 2) or finally a complete trilogy collection on one system, either way I am really excited to hear more about it as long as they don't come out as just downloads.

Earthbound is part of the virtual console trial campaign in Japan. I hope that's not all he was talking about though.

Earthbound is part of the virtual console trial campaign in Japan. I hope that's not all he was talking about though.

Yeah that's been out for a while, this was something new that was fairly recently announced, or do you mean the new virtual console for the Wii U? If that's what he meant then I will probably just crawl into bed and stay there for a week.

Yeah that's been out for a while, this was something new that was fairly recently announced, or do you mean the new virtual console for the Wii U? If that's what he meant then I will probably just crawl into bed and stay there for a week.

I hope we see a new Metroid game though, hopefully not one as tedious as the Prime games, but I still like that gameplay style and open world feel, just less back tracking would be nice. A more forward approach to designing the levels would be far more enjoyable but having the ability to backtrack for side puzzles that require ability upgrades in order access them so you can obtain upgrades like energy tanks and missile upgrades would be perfect. Basically, if they can make a 3D version of the 2D games which don't have so much bloody backtracking, it would be way more fun.

The backtracking in the first Prime game worked really well, because it simply put you into new places in Tallon Overworld or Phendrana Drifts instead of the same old places. Can't speak much for the two other Prime games, but I like how the first one handled it. Super Metroid handled it the best though.

But yeah, I'd love another Metroid sidescroller, heck, I'd love another Metroid game where they don't try to force a story on you. Super Metroid and Prime handled it perfectly, tell us the premise in the beginning, have NO talk whatsoever through the course of the game, and give us the percentage screen at the end. Prime probably did it best, because there was a story to discover, but if you wanted to know about it you had to discover it yourself, it wasn't forced upon you. Bottomline, Metroid games have never sold on story, but rather on gameplay and discovery, a story in a Metroid game keeps the sales down actually. Another Metroid sidescroller, preferably made by Retro Studios seeing their overly impressive work with Donkey Kong Country Returns, would be a dream come true, but probably not this E3, since Miyamoto hinted half a year ago that production hadn't even started on either Metroid or Star Fox for Wii U, even if he'd like it.

I remember reading something regarding an interview with one of the main Nintendo staff regarding of how they wanted Zelda to be more open world and not so linear and that Mario was the game that would be linear. Problem was that since the first Zelda's they found it quite hard and if I'm correct that's what is taking them so long on the next Zelda game.

If you want to go into the WW in HD thing then I'm going to say I like it but it really wasn't necessary but the reason I think they did it... Well I'm not too sure, didn't they say it was hard to do so? Another problem with having Majora's in HD is that it would really require far more work than WW but I'm pretty certain they are going to do it for the 3DS (said that in an earlier post). If they are going to re-release WW, I wish they could like 2 extra dungeons.

They did a fairly good job making Twilight Princess open-world ish. Of course it was linear in many aspects, but every time you got an item, other parts of the world and little secrets and collectibles would open up to you, and there were large explorable parts from fairly early on. It wasn't as open world as Wind Waker, but far better, because unlike Wind Waker, the journey could actually have more then one thing to look at, and usually had something at the end of it.

"English doesn't so much borrow words from other languages as follows them into a dark alley, hits them over the head and goes through their pockets for loose vocabulary."